


the road to you

by captaincastello



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Battle, Crossing Timelines, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Mutual Pining, POV Multiple
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-15
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2020-01-14 13:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18476950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captaincastello/pseuds/captaincastello
Summary: Steve rolls over his side with one last internal reminder that he would allow himself to feel these schoolboy things again at the right time, maybe somewhere after retirement if that ever becomes an option for him. What he can absolutely be sure of now is that these white-picket-fence ideas in his head is just not a picture that Natasha Romanoff fits in.ORA set of connected drabbles about Steve and Natasha navigating their relationship over the course of the movies until A4.





	the road to you

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this on and off ever since the start of A4 press tour, and am so glad to have finished this considering the indefinite writing slump i'm in
> 
> also BIG THANKS to mark ruffalo for handing us a gift in the form of the romanogers/stevenat/capwidow photo that ultimately became the inspiration for one of the scenes in this piece

 

 

 

 

The first time he starts to think he might be seeing her a little differently from the rest is preceded by a flavor of disappointment he’s not entirely familiar with.

It’s not exactly a so-called blow to the ego - no, many would argue that he, Captain America, is the epitome of humility - rather, it’s more a reaction out of a break in normalcy. In this case, ‘normalcy’ pertains to that feeling of being ogled and objectified once he starts shedding off his clothes - this is something he’s had to get used to after coming out of Howard’s tech looking like prime beef saved for the more economically-advantageous members of society.

Of course he’d betray nothing of his awareness of it, but he’d always know when he’s being looked at even outside of enemy surveillance. He can tell the difference from being pierced by eyes with the intent to kill, or those with ulterior motives. He can tell which soldiers he fought with wanted to bed him in the late hours of night, which nurses back in the medical bay wanted to be in charge of him despite the lack of need to anyway because he was built to endure more than the average human.

This, of course, never applied to everyone, but most of the time he’d evoke either a second glance or a slow sweeping once-over the moment he starts pulling his shirt off his body. So it takes him a split second of surprise to process why Natasha doesn’t even bat an eye at the sweat glistening off his abs.

To his far right, Clint lets off a whistle from where he’s cleaning his bow and arrows on a bench. Thor (why a god like him is in the training room with them is beyond Steve, but he’s willing to bet it’s most likely out of boredom) nods his approval with a thundering “A fine specimen of man if I ever did see one!”, which consequently elicits a begrudging “Fine, I’ll give him that,” and an eyeroll from Tony. Pepper looks up from the clipboard she’s showing him, and lets out a dry cough once Tony finally gets her back to whatever it was they’d been talking about. Even Bruce, who’s having the time of his life making adjustments to one of the Stark Industries training bots, pops his head out of the bulky machinery to admire him with big doe eyes.

But not Natasha. Unfazed, her fiery green eyes don’t leave the now battered punching bag she’d pour all her attention to since mid-day even as she addresses him. “Done so soon, Cap?”

“Not another fossil joke from you, Agent Romanoff.”

She still doesn’t turn her face to him, but he knows she’s smiling back at him. So of course she noticed him. Just not in the way he’d learn to expect from others, but it puts a smile on his face for some reason.

Much later in the day when there’s nothing to distract him from his thoughts, he inwardly berates himself for that immature reaction. Why did it bother him, even for just a fraction of a second? Did being a hero get into his head so much? Did the underdog in him always seek for this kind of validation from everyone?

No. He knows the answer to that is a definite ‘no’.

Or, upon deeper reflection, why was he expecting it of Nat in particular? Or more likely, was he hoping for it? Did he want her to show that kind of interest in him, see some spark in those green eyes as they rake over his body? Was he seeking specifically for any indication of what she thought of him?

It’s no question that Natasha Romanoff is as beautiful as she is deadly. Steve knows he would be lying id he said otherwise. He also knows it wouldn’t be smart of him to keep entertaining these thoughts.

In the face of all the things that require his immediate attention, of all the missions lined up for them by SHIELD, this is the one thing right now that’s keeping him from sleeping. Steve rolls over his side with one last internal pep talk - with a reminder that he would allow himself to feel these schoolboy things again at the right time, maybe somewhere after retirement if that ever becomes an option for him. What he can absolutely be sure of now is that these white-picket-fence ideas in his head is just not a picture that Natasha Romanoff fits in.

 

 

-

 

 

The first time he unconsciously reaches for her outside of a battle is when he sees the bullet wound on her arm that she got during their first encounter with Bucky.

It’s already been weeks, and it seems to be healing just fine. He did notice that she’s been wearing clothing that covers her shoulders even when undercover (under heavier cover now that she’s exposed herself to the world). Can’t be an innocent civilian when you’re flaunting off battle scars after all.

Tracing the mark of the scar on her skin is not something he thinks too deeply about doing - he just happened to be standing next to her as they’re both stowing away their things in the locker room prior to sparring. Why his fingers - his hand - god, his entire arm, even does that is not something he can process quickly in the second that Natasha throws him an amused quirk of her lips. He withdraws his hand as if he’s just been caught sticking chewed gum on a teacher’s chair.

“Did they ever teach you at school that there’s a strict three-second rule to touching girls?” She says with impish glee. “A little more that that and we might’ve been married with our second child.”

“Guess I should get myself checked for cooties.”

“Did I just really hear you say the word ‘cooties’?”

Steve laughs along with her. Unlike with Tony, where he’s more often than not the butt of the joke, Natasha shares it with him in a way that he doesn’t feel excluded. That’s one of the many things he’s learning about her, and about them when they’re together - somehow it’s always so easy with her.

He’s not so simple that he believes he knows her better than anyone else at this point, nor that she’s going to completely let him bypass all her firewalls and examine her inner workings - but for some reason, he knows he can put his faith on the fact that she trusts him enough to even consider it. And with the same confidence, he can say he can do the same thing for her, if she asked him to.

With all their playful flirting and the secrets she’s trained to keep, somehow he’s learned to tell when she’s being honest. And he’s also learned that around him, Natasha Romanoff never has a reason to lie.

 

 

-

 

 

The first time he seriously thinks about what she really means to him is preceded by the most testing days he’s ever had.

He knows he’s just kissed another woman. He just lost his first love, his team was falling apart, his best friend has just resurfaced as the public’s most recent enemy. Everything felt like a mess, and it became even easier to want to slip into something convenient and available. But convenient isn’t something Steve wants to settle for, and he certainly can’t and won’t be unfair to Peggy’s flesh and blood.

He knows he’s a changed man. Far different even from the ‘changed man’ he was following the serum and the war. Now that everything’s said and done, now that he’s gone against the government and is facing a life of running and hiding, the person he seeks out isn’t the one he exchanged a kiss with. Instead, he’s standing by an abandoned warehouse container by the pier, waiting for the person who chose to stand by him in the end even if it meant leaving everything behind her.

A couple of heartbeats later, Natasha steps out from the shadows, a single duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

“So we’re on the run again, huh?” Natasha says as she squints at the setting sun behind him through her aviator glasses. “We really gotta stop hanging out like this, Steve.”

She falls into place beside him, where Steve needs her to be, even when he doesn’t tell her.

“Maybe this is just _our_ kind of thing,” he responds with a light shrug.

She lets out a small laugh. They both know things are going to be harder from this point on than the last time they went rogue. They’re high-profile fugitives with no organization to back them up. From then on, it’s only them versus everything else.

With everything that’s gone down and the unforeseeable tomorrows ahead of them, it almost seems impossible to enjoy a few minutes of peace like this. In a few clicks, the sun will blend into the sea, a spectacle the proves how even the most unlikely and maybe even opposing forces could unite and become one. He can say the same about the two of them.

He realizes how much he’s missed this - simply being around her and knowing he didn’t want for much anything else. He thinks about how painful it had been without her, how comforting it was when she held him in the church. He thinks about the relief that washed over him when she helped him and Bucky go despite the repercussions it meant for her.

And if he didn’t let her know all these things, he knows he’d be an utter fool.

“If I’m going up against the world,” Steve says, his voice softer than the cry of seagulls in the distance, “I sure as hell am glad you’re by my side, Nat.”

She doesn’t say anything back; instead she turns her head and faces him and really, _really _,__  looks at him. He holds her gaze, and lets the weight of words unspoken fill in the spaces between them, knowing she understands despite the silence.

There’s so much he’d like to tell her with actual words, but there will be more time for that later.

 

 

-

 

 

The first time a nauseating fear of losing her overwhelms him is after they get back from a mission in the Philippines.

They’ve managed to be lucky for such a long time, suffering no more than a few injuries and wounds that healed a lot faster than the cuts they held in their hearts. This time - well, they always knew they were never completely safe, and that they would be prepared for it if the worst caught up to them as they were sure it would - yet this, albeit expected in the line of duty, still shook them all to the core.

It isn’t anything they can fix with their almost depleted medical supply and first aid kit. It’s not something that can be remedied by ice packs or a hot compress. They don’t have the option of going to a hospital, or any private medical room, not even when Natasha is going cold and barely breathing, blood from the deep cut on her back still warm on Steve’s suit.

There’s only one place that will receive them without any threat of arrest, and Sam flies them there at hyper speed without needing to be told.

The journey is spent in silence - no witty banter, no reminiscing of daring adventures and missions, no light-hearted flirting. Not that there had been a lot of the latter as of late - flirting had once been Natasha’s way of breaking the ice with Steve. There is less of that now - that block of ice that once stood between them has long since thawed and melted away.

The night bleeds into inky sky and dark oceans until it gradually rolls over mountains, forests, fields. Steve only looks up from his shaking hands to see the sun rising over Wakanda.

T’challa doesn’t waste any times on pleasantries. Sam had sent an early message of urgency, and when they land, there is already an envoy waiting to escort them to the medical bay.

With Shuri’s help and Wakanda’s unparalleled tech, patching Natasha up doesn’t take more than half an hour. Her wound is steadily healing, her vitals are stabilized and she’s well out of any physical danger. When she would wake up will be totally up to her now.

Bucky offers to show him and Sam to their rooms so they can rest while they wait for her, but Steve politely refuses. He says he needs to be there when she wakes up.

They try convince him to clean up first, wipe all the grime and sweat of the last few days. He tells them he doesn’t mind, he’d rather not move away from where Nat is. He looks down at his suit, stained with soot and blood - partly his own, the enemies’, mostly hers. He stays rooted on his seat beside her, his fingers trembling around her own. He needs to stay here, he tells them one last time, his voice breaking like it never had for a very long time.

Steve spends most of his time thinking of how things went down, how he could have prevented it if he could, and knowing that he probably wouldn’t have anyway. Natasha faces all her enemies head on, she fell down doing the same thing. He thinks about she has survived worse, how she helped him through his own injuries. He thinks about her confident, almost effortless grace in battle, her calm and precise movements in and out of a mission, her worldly wisdom and reassuring presence.

Steve softly grazes his calloused fingers over her cheek. She looks more peaceful than all the times he’s seen her asleep.

He has lived with loss for most of his life - both the one before and the one after - his pain following him wherever he went, until he learned to draw strength from it and honor the people he lost by continuing to fight the good fight. That doesn’t mean losing another one will not break him anymore.

His voice comes out raspy, like his throat is made of sandpaper, as he whispers for her to come back.

 

 

-

 

 

The first thing she sees when she opens her eyes is a crown of gold lying snug against her arm.

Her voice doesn’t come to her easily, and all she can do for the first couple of seconds is to cough. When Steve suddenly turns his head to look her in the eye, she finally manages a small, broken sound - his name.

There’s a moment of confusion - what happened, where they were, how long was she out - and Steve answers none of her half-slurred questions because he’s busy pulling her face closer to his to bring their foreheads together.

“You’re safe,” he says, and he’s smiling even as he looks like he’s about to break. He looks tired yet relieved, and Natasha wants nothing but to wrap her arms around his broad back in this moment.

They only have a couple of seconds until people pile into the room after being alerted of her consciousness returning. Sam, who had dropped by multiple times to watch over the two of them, looks like he hasn’t fully rested, but there’s no erasing the smile on his face as he hugs them both. Bucky places a hand on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve holds it as they exchange a look that it seems only they can understand. T’challa looks on, while Shuri immediately pulls up Natasha’s chart in midair.

“You are completely out of danger now,” Shuri tells her. “You lost quite a lot of blood. You’re lucky you were immediately rushed here, otherwise there’s no telling what could’ve been.”

Still mildly disoriented yet considerably relieved, Natasha glances at her team. They are in varying degrees of fatigue, yet happy nonetheless. Sam looks like he has been tended to, but Steve - well, he looks as if the battle hasn’t left him yet. Haggard as he may be, nothing can seem to snuff out the brightness in his eyes as he’s looking at her.

She clears her throat. There was a time in which she thought she was better off on her own, that forging bonds with another was nothing but a liability. How wrong she had been.

“Lucky I’m in very good company.”

 

 

-

 

 

The first thing her body does when Steve lunges for her is to meet him head on.

In the second it takes for a rain of bullets to descend upon them, Steve holds her - an arm around her midsection to keep her close and a hand cradling her head - while Natasha has one hand protecting the back of his neck, her other hand freely shooting back at the enemy at Steve’s six.

She takes four of their shooters down before Steve rolls them over to throw a flash grenade to buy them a few seconds to escape.

"Is it just me, or are you guys taking a second longer than last time?” Sam says through her earpiece. He sounds too cheerful for a guy who’s also under heavy fire.

“Aw, Sam,” Natasha says as she runs off to the next upturned car for cover, and a better vantage point for the next wave of bad guys. “I’ll let you have a go at Steve next time.”

Sam responds with an amused “So kind of you to share.”

“Not a free-taste sample, you guys,” Steve chuckles into the intercom.

Natasha starts shooting at any threat who dare point a gun at Steve as he rushes off to meet their armed foes with his fists. Shield or no shield, he’s always in the front lines. She has seen him brandishing his skill with a gun back in the shooting range in the Avengers HQ, but she knows he’d rather not use such weapons in battle. She respects that, heck maybe even admires it, but heaven forbid she’d let him be at the cold end of one.

When the battle has finally finished, and the captured hostages set free, Natasha finds Steve among the rubble.

“Sam has a point you know,” she says.

“I’m not opposed to hugging him mid-battle, either,” Steve answers with that easy smile of his despite his newest injuries that will heal before the day ends.

Natasha laughs softly at his quip. Spending too much time around Sam sure has its obvious effects. Then she presses her lips together, her eyes dart sideways for a fraction of a second, and Steve immediately knows she has something more to say other than witty banter.

Then her eyes find his again, and when she speaks, her voice is toned down lower.

“We look out for each other. But we can’t forget you’re not exactly bullet-proof, Steve.”

She knows that Steve knows perfectly well what she is capable of, that she could hold her own. She knows that she stands beside him as his equal, that he trusts her to protect him and Sam in the same way that they also prioritize her safety. She knows that even without a sheet of vibranium between them and a torrent of bullets, Steve will no doubt tuck her in his chest and turn his back around to receive the blow itself. And that, out of everything in the universe, scares her.

When Steve simply holds her gaze but says nothing, she continues. “I don’t break easily.”

“I know,” he says softly as he takes a step towards her. “I know you can beat me in hand-to-hand combat if you wanted to. I know you can sneak up on me when you feel like it. I know just how strong and brave and smart you are, Natasha. But if I get even a bit close to losing you, I will not forgive myself if I don’t do something about it.”

The intensity in his eyes can burn a hole into vibranium itself, but Natasha holds his gaze.

“That goes the same for me, too,” she finally says after a beat. “Looks like I can’t really call you on that if I’m guilty of the same thing.”

Steve lets out a tiny laugh, and that’s the end of it. They will do whatever they can in their power to keep each other safe, and nothing is going to change that.

Meanwhile, behind one of the upturned vehicles, Sam is quietly smiling to himself as he tries to think of when the perfect time is to smoothly interrupt this intimate exchange.

 

 

-

 

 

The first thing she does when she spots a pair of Game Boys and a link cable is to immediately report her fantastic discovery to Steve and Sam.

They’re staying at an abandoned caravan for the night, a rainstorm hot on their heels since mid-afternoon, and with nothing but an itch to break the routine of training and spying and running and fighting, all Natasha wants is a bit of fun.

She has never quite held a Game Boy before - she knows how to use it, has seen documentaries of American children and their toys back when she was getting her ‘education’ - but she has never, until this day, ever sat down and played with one.

She’s a fast learner and quick with her fingers - not too long into the night, she has already bested Sam twenty-three times out of thirty-one. Out of the three of them, Sam’s the only one who got to live the glory days of the small gizmo, and decides he’s had enough of playing after losing one more round to Natasha.

He laughs as he cracks a joke about gamer veterans passing the torch to prodigious new-comers. He lets Steve take over the second Game Boy. Now it’s Natasha’s turn to teach him how to play.

“You crazy kids better watch your curfew,” he jokingly warns as he cleans up the empty soup cans that pass as their dinner. “You can never underestimate the addictive power of Game Boy games.”

Sure enough, when he’s already snoring off and snug in his sleeping bag, Natasha and Steve are still huddled in a corner playing their nth round of Tetris. An hour ago, Sam had taken on the Mother Hen role and covered them waist-down with a big blanket. The rain is still heavily knocking on the old roof.

“Give up, Rogers,” Natasha says, her eyes still glued on the screen. “You’re going down. _Again_.”

Steve’s blocks are almost touching the top of the screen. If he doesn’t get lucky in any of his next two or three turns, he’s screwed.

“We’ll see about that, Romanoff,” he responds, his thumbs firing away at the buttons.

They keep playing for another couple of hours before finally, both of the gadgets die in their hands. Both are amazed that the batteries held out for so long.

“So I guess that’s that,” Natasha says as she sets both gadgets down on the ground beside her. “At least we played these to their full potential.”

“Did we just spend an entire three hours competitively playing some 90’s games?”

“Yep. We sure did.”

They suddenly burst out laughing, but a second later they’re covering each others’ mouths as Sam slightly stirs inside his snug cocoon. For a thrilling second they are as still as rocks as Sam mutters something in his sleep about toaster ovens and kitten socks. Natasha makes a mental note to ask Sam about that in the morning.

When they’ve both quieted down, she’s about to lower her hand from Steve’s bearded face, except her hand suddenly freezes in midair as her awareness becomes sharper.

It’s not the first time they’ve sat side by side, but tonight it’s not quite the same. There’s almost no space for even dust to settle between them, their shoulders not merely touching but leaning towards each other’s. When she looks up, she then realizes how long his eyelashes are, how deep and intense his azure eyes can be.

Steve’s hand moves as well - not away from her face, but just a little bit downward to cup her cheek. She immediately leans toward his palm. She likes how his calloused fingers feel against her skin.

Her breath catches in her throat, and in the next second gets lost in Steve’s mouth as he takes away all the doubts in her mind. She pushes back with equal zeal, her hand moving to rake her fingers up in his hair as he pulls her much closer still. Once before, she had wondered if Steve knew how to use tongue; now, she doesn’t have to.

When they part, her lips are swollen, and so are Steve’s. His cheeks are flushed pink all the way to his ears. And he’s grinning.

“That was-” Natasha begins, but she can’t even begin to describe it. Intense. Amazing. Like fireworks in her brain. Like the finest glass of champagne she’s ever had. Like a fresh start. All of these things at once. She tries to think of the words but nothing can quite fully encompass the entirety of what she’s feeling.

This wasn’t like the few calculated kisses they shared in the past that were initiated out of necessity. This time it’s real, and she knows this because she feels very vulnerable and yet safe all at once. A paradox, just like they once were together.

“I know,” Steve says back. And she understands. It’s all in his eyes, in those beautiful, tired but vibrant ocean-filled eyes. “I just wish I’d done it sooner.”

“You and me both,” she says as she pulls him in again. Kissing him tastes like centuries of waiting ending at long last, feels like sunshine and a rainbow after a storm. Her name all but melts in his tongue, a prayer to stop time lodged at the back of her mouth. Then again, maybe it doesn’t matter how long it took them as long as they reached each other at last.

As the sky begins to clear the next day, Sam stops pretending he didn’t know this all along.

 

 

-

 

 

The first tine they met, Steve had no idea he would come to lean so much on Natasha Romanoff, on her steadfast friendship and reliable judgement, that he’d come to seek not only her counsel, but her companionship as well.

There was a time when he’d never envisioned her to become a constant in his life, a time when he was sure their paths only converged at work. And yet that path is forged anew, their footsteps walking side by side on the ground.

Whatever uncertainties that lie in their future, Steve knows he can be sure of what they’ve built. He can, without a doubt, look forward to a future with Natasha Romanoff in it.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!!  
> pls feel free to leave kudos and/or drop a comment below xx
> 
> also i've got a romanogers drabble set in A4, you can check it out [ here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/18189749) :)


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